Slugging it out
ST CLEMENTS continues to entertain. This Monday evening get-together of folk with a taste for the quirky in art and literature is a welcome refuge from the Great Issues of the Day (which mostly, and so tediously, seem to involve Comrade Julius).
This week we had Pieter Scholtz and a panel reading from amusing short stories he's written from a tiny village in France, which he apparently visits regularly.
They're set in the village cemetery, and we had themes like ghosts slugging it out for the heavyweight boxing championship of France; plus a deceased brothel madame trying to re-engage with her clients now at rest in the cemetery.
As I say, amusing – but this absinthe is strong stuff. I'm glad Pieter takes a break in Durban now and again.
Lexophilia
READERS are cautioned against an outbreak of lexophilia – a bizarre fixation with free-flowing word association. It has gone viral on the internet and can cause severe disorientation in recipients. Examples:
· You can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish.
· When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, UCLA.
· The theory of earthquakes is on shaky ground.
· Dud batteries were given out free of charge.
· A dentist and a manicurist married. They fought tooth and nail.
· If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.
The only known antidote is whisky.
Baywatch beaches
AMERICA is a free country – as long as you obey the rules. On the beaches of Los Angeles County, California, you can now be fined $100 for throwing a frisbee outside of the designated areas. Children digging a hole deeper than 18 inches could land their parents in trouble.
It's caused a storm of protest on the social networks but the authorities say it's to prevent sunbathers getting trampled or children having sand collapse on them in deep holes.
Those are the Baywatch beaches. What kind of trampling would there not be if Pamela Anderson were to put in a re-appearance?
Big election year
LILIAN Develing, of Hillcrest, points out that 2012 is a big election year. There are elections in the US, Russia, France, Egypt, Mexico, Taiwan and Venezuela, as well as in about 30 other countries around the world. The quotes that follow might be apposite:
· We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop.
· Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumb. - Plato.
· Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. - Nikita Khrushchev.
· When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it. - Irving Stone.
· Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel. - John Quinton.
· Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other. - Oscar Ameringer.
· The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it. - PJ O'Rourke.
· I offer my opponents a bargain: if they stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them. - Adlai Stevenson.
· A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country. - Texas Guinan.
· I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians. - Charles de Gaulle.
· Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks. - Doug Larson.
Lilian should know about this kind of thing. She's charged with watching Ethekwini Council on behalf of ratepayers.
Bird-proof
READER Gray Braatvedt brings us news of a technological breakthrough.
"I have just seen a new, bird-proof milk bottle top. It's impeccable!"
Tailpiece
She: "You never listen to me, you hear only what you want to hear."
He: "Sure, I'll have a beer."
Last word
When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
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